


What I Wouldn't Do

by ChantiRose



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 17:57:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4634784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChantiRose/pseuds/ChantiRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dutch knows that Khylen has D'avin, and she knows there's only one way to get him back. The cost of her choice is high, but to save D'avin it's barely a choice at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I Wouldn't Do

“D’avin… I know you’re out there. And I know that you’ll eventually hear me. I want you to know we’re never giving up. Wherever he’s taken you, whatever he’s done to you… I will find you _._ I will find you.” Dutch quickly brushed the tear off of her face and took a deep breath. “I…” she began again in a shaky voice, but changed her mind at the last moment. “That’s all, Lucy. Just play it on a loop, alright? And let me know immediately if you get a reply.”

“Of course, Dutch”

Dutch didn’t reply, she just strode out of the bridge and down the hallway to her room; fortunately, though the ship was crowded, she didn’t run into anyone on her way there. If she had, they wouldn’t have been able to help but notice the tears falling more and more rapidly down her cheeks. When she finally closed the bedroom door behind her, she didn’t even bother trying to hold it in any longer. She fell down on the bed and her body convulsed as she sobbed. She tried to scream, but it felt like there was no air left in her lungs and not a single sound came out. She gasped for breath and then the process began again. Within minutes her pillow was completely saturated with tears, and it wasn’t long after that that her eyes ran dry and a sort of blankness washed over her.

After a few moments of lying there in stillness she sat up and dried off her face, and then reached under the bed to pull out a bottle of hokk. She pulled the cork out of the neck of the bottle and tipped it to the side to pour a shot out on the floor. “D’avin” she whispered. Then she raised the bottle to her lips and drank heavily. When her throat began to burn from the amber liquid she lowered the bottle, stoppered it, and returned it to its place beneath her bed before flipping her pillow over and lying back down to stare at the ceiling.

It wasn’t long before the hokk started to take effect. The burning in her stomach helped to quell the agony in her heart and she felt more clear headed then than she had since she first realized what must be happening. Slowly, she reached up to her neck and wrapped her fingers around the pendant that hung from a necklace there. It was a small circle, with two small lines coming out of the sides and one longer line protruding from the bottom. She played with it for a moment or two, then suddenly ripped the chain off of her neck and held the pendant tightly in her palm. She sat up and stared at it, and then resolvedly began bending the lines inward on tiny hinges  to form a triangle.

Once she had pulled the longest line up to complete the pyramid, a light began to emit from the center of the circle and a projection of Khylen’s face was hovering in her palm. The locket had been a gift from Khylen years ago, as a means to reach him if she were ever in trouble. To be honest, she wasn’t even sure herself why she had kept it ever since her escape, but in that moment she was glad she had.

“Little Bird” Khylen crooned. “Twelve years, and you finally decide to use my gift. Why now?”

“You know why, Khylen. You have him, don’t you?”

“If by him you mean that soldier that you seem so fond of, I’m afraid that the answer is yes. But you already knew that, didn’t you? So, although I am pleased to hear from you, I shall ask again. Why call me?”

Dutch lifter her head high and swallowed back the lump in her throat. “I want to trade” she whispered with her eyes shut.

There was silence for a moment before Khylen responded. “Trade? Little Bird, what could you possibly offer?” His voice was calm, almost condescending, but Dutch knew him well enough to detect the thrilled undercurrent in his tone.

“Me” she said, opening her eyes and meeting his holographic gaze. “Let D’avin go, and I’ll come to you. Join Red 17 or Level Six or whatever it is that you have him for. Let D’avin go, and I’ll be what you always intended me to be.”

“Yala… Are you certain of this?”

“I don’t have a choice. D’avin deserves better than whatever you have planned for him. I can’t let you have him. So accept my offer. Get what you’ve always wanted. Say yes, Khylen.” More silence followed for what seemed like eons, until finally Khylen spoke, one word.

“Yes.”

Dutch was stunned for a moment, incredulous of the fact that he’d actually agreed. She’d been nearly certain that she would be denied. Quickly, she shook herself out of it. “Where? When?”

“The far side of Arkyn moon. Come alone. Come unarmed. You have my word that our deal will be honoured, and no harm will come to you or to the boy. I will meet you in four hours time.”

“You’ll bring D’avin with you?”

“I will. Until tonight, Little Bird.”

With that, the hologram shut off and Dutch was left alone to process the weight of what she’d just done. She stood up and slowly walked over to her closet. She pulled the door open, pushed all of the clothes aside, and then gently pressed against the back wall. With a faint click the back wall popped open to reveal another 2 foot deep space. A single hanger hung on the back wall of the secret compartment, and Dutch gingerly reached out and took it down. She carried the garment back across the room and laid it out on her bed, then stepped back to take in the scarlet robe that she had worn for so many years in her youth. Shaking herself out of the sentimentality she removed the holsters from her waist and thighs, kicked off her worn boots, undressed herself from her now familiar black pants and blue jacket, and stood naked in the center of the room. She inhaled deeply, seized the garment on the bed, and carefully pulled it over her head.

Although she was taller now than she had been the last time she’d worn that dress six years ago, her active lifestyle had kept her waistline the same and the dress slid on perfectly. She reached behind herself and laced up the back with practiced hands, and then took the loose hood and pulled it gently over her hair. She tread barefoot back over to the closet from whence she pulled a pair of crimson silk slippers and slipped them onto her feet. She glanced quickly in the mirror on the back of the closet door and, despite the situation, couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. Looking at herself now, it would have been easy to believe that not a single day had passed since she had left the harem. Khylen would be pleased.

She was about to walk out of her room, but she knew that pretty much anyone on board would stop her if they saw her wearing such a thing. She pulled the hood back down and donned a long black overcoat that hid her outfit. Thus concealed she left the room and closed the door behind her. With any luck, John would assume she was still in there until it was too late to do anything about it. She snuck quietly down the corridor and past the kitchen to the entrance of the shuttle.

“Lucy, open the door to the pod, please. And don’t tell John that I’m gone.”

“Of course, Dutch.” Lucy said. “Where are you going?”

“To get D’avin. But like I said, John can’t know. Not until D’avin’s back.”

“Don’t you mean ‘D’avin and I’?” Lucy asked.

Dutch smiled just slightly. “I meant what I said, Lucy. But, when D’avin does get back… Give John a message for me? Tell him that I’m sorry, that I had to, and that I love him. Tell him that he’s the best partner and the best friend that I’ve ever had, and then tell him not to come after me. Don’t let them come after me, alright Lucy? That’s an order.”

“Yes, Dutch.” Although Lucy was only a computer program, Dutch could have sworn that she heard a hint of sadness in the AI’s voice. “Safe travels.” Lucy said as the pod door opened and Dutch climbed in.

It was a two hour flight to get to Arkyn from Lucy’s current position, which meant that once Dutch had set the autopilot course she had a lot of time to dread that which she was about to do. Lucy’s programming didn’t extend to the shuttle, so the system was manually operated, but all of the data from the main ship was also accessible from the pod. With a few keystrokes, Dutch pulled up some of the pictures that she, D’avin, and John and taken via their contact lens cameras during missions. A lot of them were too blurry to even bother with, but every now and then she would come across a few that were clear. The first one was actually of herself, on the first mission that the team had gone on together. D’avin had been wearing the lens on that mission, and some of the pictures made her laugh. He’d spent a fair amount of time assessing her, well, her assets.

Later came pictures of other missions; John jumping from a crazy high box and tackling the target, D’avin recoiling in horror at the liquefied man who’d touched the security wire, herself with guns out and an intense focus in her eye. And after those, she came across pictures from the one time that she’d been wearing the lens and had forgotten to take it out directly after mission. She, D’avin, and John had gone to the Royale to celebrate another successful warrant, and they were just having a good time together. Pree featured heavily in a couple of the pictures, as he always had Dutch’s attention when he was providing her with more booze. In a couple of pictures Dutch noticed that, although John was the subject of the picture, D’avin had been staring at her as she spoke. Clearly she’d been too engrossed in her conversation with John to notice, but now in the photos she could clearly see the emotions drifting around behind his eyes. She smiled at the screen and brought her hand up to gently caress the screen. Tears threatened to overcome her again, but she quickly steeled herself with a deep breath and turned the screen off. Dwelling on the past wouldn’t change her future.

It seemed like only minutes later that the autopilot dinged to indicate that it was disengaging so that the shuttle could be landed manually. Gracefully Dutch landed on the surface of Arkyn and then she waited. It wasn’t long before another shuttle landed next to her. A blue light pulsed out of it and formed a dome over the area, maybe the length of a football field in diameter. A light next to the shuttle door indicated that the atmosphere outside was now breathable, and with one last breath to steel her nerves, Dutch took off the overcoat and lifted her hood before opening the pod door and stepping outside.

Several feet away the door to the other ship was opening and stairs lowered to the moon’s surface. Out stepped D’avin and, behind him, Khylen.

“Dutch!” D’avin yelled, and he ran down the stairs and over to her. He wrapped his arms around her in a hug, and she clung to him for dear life. It only lasted a moment though, before Khylen subtly cleared his throat. D’avin looked over at Khylen, who was looking pointedly at Dutch, and he turned back to the girl in his arms. “Dutch, what’s going on?” She just shook her head in reply as tears began to well in her eyes. “Dutch, what did you do?”

“What I had to D’avin. Look, you get in that pod, fly back to Lucy, and take care of your brother. Take care of the Quad, okay? Trees help us all, it’s going to need it. But you go back and you be safe and you have a good life, you hear me D’avin?”

“Dutch, no, you can’t do this!”

“It’s done, D’av. I made my decision, now let me follow this through.”

“No way. No way. You’re insane if you think I’m going to let you give yourself over to him for me. There’s no way in any hell that I’m letting that happen.”

“You’re going to try and stop me, Jaqobis?”

“Hells yes I am!”

Dutch reached up and caressed his face lightly before standing on tiptoe to kiss him. He was caught off guard momentarily and kissed her back fiercely, but Dutch used that moment to her advantage. She brought her hand from his cheek around to the back of his neck and pressed in the particular way that she knew would make him (or anyone else) slump over unconscious. Tears fell from her face in earnest now as she carried him over to the pod and strapped him in. A few keystrokes and the pod was set to fly back to Lucy and dock automatically. She knew that D’avin would wake up before he was even a quarter of the way back, but she locked in the flight course so that he couldn’t change it. Finally, she kissed him gently once more and said aloud that which she had been too afraid to leave on the recording she’d made earlier.

“I love you, D’avin” she whispered before drying her face and hurriedly stepping off of the pod as the door shut and the pod took off. Then, she walked over to Khylen and knelt in front of him as he had always taught her to do.

“Welcome home, Little Bird” he said, laying a hand on her arm and gently lifting her back to her feet. He motioned slightly with one hand, and Yelena walked up the steps to his ship with her head held high.

Regardless of what was to come, this was her choice and she would greet her future as the warrior she was meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I am leaving this rather open ended... I'm not sure if I'm going to continue it or not though. If I did try to continue it it would get too long and, while I do enjoy writing fic, I'm not a huge fan of writing long ones. So this may or may not be it for this story but, hey, it's no worse of a cliffhanger than the ACTUAL FINALE WAS, RIGHT??
> 
> God, they had better renew this show.


End file.
